Sun up over the train overpass

Stuck between work and dark place, so to speak, I got up early today and made some paintings at the Grand Boulevard pedestrian train overpass walkway. By work I mean teaching and research which are both busy these days, and the dark place is that it gets dark at like 4:30PM now, and cold. At some point it will be time to paint in the cold, but so far November is extremely mild. In the painting, I was on the sidewalk near Maisonneuve bike path looking up at the overpass, with the sun rising in the background.

Overpass sunrise, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, November 2026

Same spot but looking up the initial ramp, with a glimpse of the Maisonneuve traffic on the left. The overpass zig-zags on both sides of the train tracks, with a walkway going over top with tall fences. 

Overpass ramps, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, November 2026

Here is the view across the top part of the overpass, with train tracks down on the left. Amazingly, no trains went by as I painted, so it was unusually quiet, and the sun was decent. Eventually a commuter train did go by, but I did not include it in any of the paintings. I was going fast today to get in as many as I could before work. 

Overpass cross way , watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, November 2026

Its one of the few places you can get a view of the blue horizon, here on the cross way, looking due south west. Factory/warehouses line the tracks, and trees for the most part have lost their leaves. Emphasizing white and black highlights created a good sense of contrast. Pops of red, yellow and orange play well off of the blue horizon. 

Overpass blue horizon, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, November 2026

A puddle reflected the sun, creating an intriguing effect, along with complex angles. It was the most technical painting today, made more difficult by moist and cool conditions.  

Overpass puddle reflection, , watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, November 2026

Finally, a horizontal format showing the tracks perspective with cool blue-violet shadows. These tracks, along with the overpass structure made for some interesting compositions. I've painted here before, for example graffiti and angles, morning commuter train, and probably a few others. Which reminds me I need to update the catalogue soon, another big pile has built up. 

Overpass tracks shadows, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, November 2026

 

Downtown Montreal, highway scenes, Cabot square

I was standing on rue st Antoine looking east, with a view of Highway 136. A gloomy purplish sky loomed over a brilliant green-blue-violet city-scape. Playing the yellow-orange Fall colour trees off the cool surroundings made for an exciting composition. Warm concrete tones complete the look.

Highway city scape, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, November 2026

Same spot looking west, where the sun was nearly hidden behind heavy cloud cover. It was a short moment of sunlight, followed by cool gloom for the rest of the afternoon. Its a neat painting, with an eerie glow. Quinacridone violet (PV55) brings the cool purple tones here, and bismuth vanadate yellow (PY184) supplies the intense yellows. 

Sun overcast highway, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, November 2026

Earlier, at the top of Fort street, I made this painting of cars going into the tunnel. When finished, I walked my bike on the sidewalk down the tunnel, which pops out on st Antoine street at the bottom. There were some good views from inside the tunnel but it was not a very welcoming place to paint. 

Fort tunnel, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, November 2026

Lastly, on my way home I made one last painting of a circle of trees at Cabot square. These large planter areas adorn the park, bringing some nature to the area. I once saw large rats running around the treed areas. This scene would have been good on a larger format paper, I mainly did this painting to remember that it is a good composition. 

Cabot square circle of trees study, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, November 2026

 

Shaughnessy Village, colours and dépanneurs

Shaughnessy Village is a small neighborhood around the Forum building, it has old fashioned condos painted in bright colours, and several modern condo tower structures. Its been a fight by the locals to preserve the  neighborhood which is under heavy pressure by developers. In the painting, you see a pale yellow facade with the jet-black Forum building in the background which used to be a hockey arena. 

Yellow facade, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, November 2026

Next door, there is a purple-trim facade with greenish-blue shingled roofs. Large blocky stone bricks hold up the structure, creating a baroque architectural effect. I wanted to capture the colours and shapes rather than make an accurate architectural illustration, plus I forgot to wear my glasses for the first bunch of paintings!

Purple and green facade, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, November 2026

Still open for business I think, although closed today, is the Bon Jour dépanneur and its prominent yellow and red sign. Its integrated with the housing block from the previous paintings, you can see a pale green facade with intricate iron railings to the top right. I stood in the same spot and made those three paintings in quick succession, withstanding the strong cold wind barreling down Maisonneuve bike path. 

Bon Jour dépanneur, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, November 2026

And the defunct Elephant dépanneur with an orange construction sign out front. One assumes this part of the street is slated for re-development, which is too bad it has a lot of character. When condos are put in, they tend to be bland glass and brick boxes pushed right up to the sidewalk so you loose the neighborhood feel. They call that 'in fill' where medium density is bulldozed to make way for high density. Luckily the Shaughnessy community is organized enough to oppose or at least influence what gets done around the neighborhood. 

Elephant dépanneur construction, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, November 2026 

Night lights purple grey sky

Its not often a week goes by without any painting, so I went out back and made a quick one of night lights with a purple-grey sky. Of course, the sky mixture is indo blue (PB60) and pyrol orange (PO73), which is an incredible mix for making mauve, taupe, dark orange, purple, dark blue. If you are a watercolour painter I highly recommend the mix, especially for night skies. I first discovered the mix doing a location painting in winter, called Pizza Welat Nocturne, and have used it ever since. Even during the day, its a good mix for cool purple-grey, and with a dab of raw sienna makes for a nice cloud colour. A great example of that is one of my personal all time favorite paintings, Cloud over Tranholme park. Another good mix is indo blue with burnt yellow ochre (PR102) which goes into a more charcoal, dark brown appearance, or burnt yellow ochre plus black (PBk6) which I used in the painting above to make the wall on the left. And the dark tree is perylene green (PBk31) with black. It took me some time to work out the best mixes for night painting, and with the sun going down close to 4PM these days I had better get used to it again!

Night lights purple grey sky, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, November 2026

Green leaf, thoughts on Fall season

I did this impression awhile back, using a leaf and a mix of green paint I pressed onto the paper. Its an elementary school trick, but still loads of fun. Looks like I may have touched up the image in a few places with a brush. Its fitting then, to show a green leaf in the Fall season considering how warm its been. Although the leaves turned yellow, orange and red there were plenty of green leaves and grass around Montreal. Back in the old days, like 20 odd years ago, it was rare to get any quality painting time in the Fall. Here is a scene of a classic car on a Fall day north of Bolton, and one of my favorites of colourful reflections on the Thames river in London Ontario. But those were small windows of time when the sky was blue and leaves coloured. Most of the time, and for years in a row, fall would arrive with cold, wet wind and the leaves would fall off, or the colours would last barely a week with overcast weather. I remember thinking at the time that I would never figure out how to paint in the Fall season with how little time there was to paint. Nowadays, the Fall season goes on and on, at least for painting the colourful leaves! Of course Fall is a fixed time, it ends on November 30 going by meteorological seasons or Dec 21st according to the Solstice . 

Green leaf, watercolour 9 x 12" watercolour paper, 2020

Gas station Little Italy, looking back

Looking back on some of my old paintings, this one was from an interesting time, 2019 leading up to 2020 when the global pandemic hit. Some back story on why I did this painting, it was an idea I got from Hiroshige's series called 'The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō'. Hiroshige was a Japanese illustrator and print designer who was active throughout the middle of the 19th century. During this time, Japan had opened up to tourism, which resulted in Japanese culture reaching Europe in a big way, that was called Japanification. The idea was that Japanese art, music, theater, crafts, poetry and ideas flowed into Europe and even into North America. The Dutch painter Van Gogh came across a collection of Japanese prints which were popular among impressionist painters, Monet had quite a collection too. Van Gogh's plan was to sell them at a profit but he was a lousy business man and ended up copying them and including them in his art. So to make a long and winding story short, I discovered Hiroshige's prints via a book on Van Gogh acquired at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam where Cilei and I visited in 2018. And back to the painting, my initial thought was to paint 57 gas stations in Montreal, but it turns out gas stations are pretty boring to paint although I got a few good paintings. Instead, I ended up doing the 68 stations of the Montreal Metro system, a series completed over 2020 to 2021 or so. In fact, I keep painting scenes of the Montreal metro when I get the chance. 

Gas station Little Italy, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, 2019

Bike path old Cadillac

Thinking I had done enough painting for one weekend I stopped at the Decarie overpass and made a few more. This one shows the Maisonneuve bike path with its warning stanchion dividers, and a low sun creating monochrome tones and glaring highlights. I left part of the road white to increase the glare effect. 

Backlit bike path, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, November 2026

And an old classic Cadillac by the looks of the emblem, about a boat-length long, parked at the auto shop. It seemed rather difficult to paint this, and I used the two inch round for added challenge. It turned out better than I hoped, the chrome grill is neat. If its still there I can try and drop by and paint it again, although the forecast is for clouds and rain on and off the next while. After a search, it may have been a 1950 series 61 coupe Cadillac, or similar. 

Cadillac study, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, November 2026